Valerie Fowler

Valerie Fowler was raised in Houston, Texas. Her father was noted Houston sculptor, Bob Fowler (1931-2010). After graduating from the University of Texas (1985, with a B.A. in Art) she made Austin her home and has been actively involved in art making and art exhibition for over 40 years. Nature is her muse. Her past work includes murals for Whole Foods Market in Austin, Chicago and Ann Arbor, illustration and layout work for The Texas Observer, illustrations for CD jackets for local musicians, including a fully illustrated, 64 page book that accompanies the CD for “Ivy and the Wicker Suitcase”, a musical project, written, recorded and produced by her husband Brian Beattie. She and Beattie produced the full stage production for Austin’s Stateside at the Paramount Theater in 2014. In 2016, Fowler held Nature and Other Stories at Austin’s Dougherty Arts Center, a solo exhibit and mid career retrospective, with artworks spanning 2 decades. In 2018 she was chosen by the Texas Book Festival as the official Festival artist. Also in 2018, she contracted with Pomegranate Communications licensing her artwork images for a 2020 calendar, puzzle and art cards.

In 2021 she and Beattie completed work on another musical and “Crankie” project: El Camino Real de los Tejas Crankie Suite. A crankie is an illustration on scrolls, cranked along to musical accompaniment. In this case, it’s a 100 foot long illustration, on paper scrolls which tells stories, dipping back and forth in time, about Texas’s historic El Camino Real. These crankie performances have been performed throughout Austin, and on locations along the Camino itself. Both she and her husband maintain studios adjacent to their home. She paints, draws or gardens daily.